Читать книгу Geofroy Tory. Painter and engraver; first royal printer; reformer of orthography and typography under François I онлайн

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DE PASSIONE DOMINICA CARMEN ELEGIACUM GUILIELMI DIVITIS, CIVIS GANDAVENSIS, ARTIFICIOSÆ PIETATIS PLENISSIMUM.—Item. NENIA LACTANTII FIRMIANI VERBIS SALVATORIS NOSTRI E CRUCE.—Mark of Josse Bade ('Prelum ascensianum').[188]

One octavo sheet, printed by Josse Bade, dated the 5th of the Ides of March, 1509; that is to say, March 11, 1510, new style.[189]

On the verso of the title-page is this letter from Herverus de Berna (of Saint-Amand-Montrond) to the young people of Bourges:—

Herverus de Berna of Amand to the youth of Bourges, greeting. [190]

You are acquainted with Dives, our teacher, famed for his wisdom, a foster-child of the Muses, who well deserves your gratitude. He it is who introduced you to the Muses, Helicon, Phœbus' grove, and Mercury, and from his school, as from the Trojan horse, have issued men of education without number. His heart is in the Muses' glorious service, and his memory, it seems to me, should be forever honoured and kept green. He is reported, as the saying is, to have toiled not only by the lamp of Aristophanes, but by that of Cleanthes as well.[191] You do not doubt that he is deserving of praise for the elegance of his song; whence it happens that there is a religious poem of his written on the Passion of Our Lord,—a poem of such brilliancy, such sweetness, such ornateness, that one could believe it to be the work of the divine, rather than of a human, mind. I do not doubt that, as a result of this fact, the same thing will fall to his lot that usually falls to the lot of literary men: as Claudian says, 'His presence will diminish his fame.'[192] Not, however, without Theseus,[193] that is Tory of Bourges, my fellow-student, a man of the old, and, as Plautus says, of the Massilian, school,[194] one who combines sound learning with virtue, have I wished Dives to issue forth into the world; again, I hope, with favourable auspices, as the saying is. Farewell, with best wishes.